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VOIP?

 
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Well, not quite meaningless ... anybody using VOIP from Vonage, AT&T or one of the biggies? It looks like it could save me about $40 a month given my basic service and LD bills and such. I have questions like ...

* Quality of service - is sound and latency ok? Droped connection issues?

* Effect of computer on voice - is downloading going to cut my wife off the phone?

* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?
 
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i am with vonage, unlimited domestic call, $24.99/month.

* Quality of service - pretty bad, worse than my cell phone.

* Effect of computer on voice - some effect.

* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?

probably not, how many phone do you have in the house? how about try cordless phone.






Originally posted by Stan James:
Well, not quite meaningless ... anybody using VOIP from Vonage, AT&T or one of the biggies? It looks like it could save me about $40 a month given my basic service and LD bills and such. I have questions like ...

* Quality of service - is sound and latency ok? Droped connection issues?

* Effect of computer on voice - is downloading going to cut my wife off the phone?

* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?

 
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Originally posted by Roger Johnson:
i am with vonage, unlimited domestic call, $24.99/month.

* Quality of service - pretty bad, worse than my cell phone.

* Effect of computer on voice - some effect.

* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?

probably not, how many phone do you have in the house? how about try cordless phone.



It sounds like the early days of packet switched phone service from Sprint. When it first came out the savings looked great, but it was nearly unusable. I now subscribe to Sprint, and can't see any difference from a real circuit switched line.

VOIP will eventually be a viable substitute, but it appears to be bleeding edge right now. But then cell phone users are used to terrible service most of the time, so they won't notice.
 
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Originally posted by Roger Johnson:
* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?

probably not, how many phone do you have in the house? how about try cordless phone.



This is *the* deal-breaker as far as VOIP is concerned in my opinion. I have phone sockets in 2 bedrooms, study and kitchen - but network points only in the study.

Cordless phones may solve the phone location problem without needing to re-wire the whole house, but the base station still needs to be wired in - so would presumably need a network point

Its no good having cheap calls if my answerphone has to sit in the study where it can flash its little red light as much as it likes I'll very rarely get to see if I've got any messages!

Stans suggestion of some way of getting all the existing phone points to use the VOIP network would be great - but I dont see any such solution being offered out there (Is it technically possible?)
 
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Originally posted by Stan James:

* Quality of service - is sound and latency ok? Droped connection issues?

* Effect of computer on voice - is downloading going to cut my wife off the phone?

* Physical hookup - can I disconnect my phone box from the telephone pole, plug my phone adapter into a plug in the wall and use any phone already in the house?



I use Packet8, not sure if it is one of the biggies.

1. Quality of service is very good, and we don't notice any difference. It is also cost-effective. There have been two instances in the last year that I have used, when the phone did not work at all. We got in touch with the service reps, and the solution has always been to reset the phone, the modems etc in a specific order with a certain time delay between each.
We used to have international calling, and that was very good. No time delays, and the lines didn't ever drop off, or develop noise.

2. I don't see any effects like that. We have cable internet, and from all appearances the two seem totally isolated.

3. I am no geek, and am not sure I understand the question. But we have Panasonic phone with three cordless handsets, and it satisifies our needs.

Hope that helps.
 
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Originally posted by Adrian Wallace:
Stans suggestion of some way of getting all the existing phone points to use the VOIP network would be great - but I dont see any such solution being offered out there (Is it technically possible?)



Shouldn't this work?: Snip your phone line at the spot where it leaves the house, extend it, and send it to your network point. Crimp an RJ-11 male connector to the end and you're ready to go.

(I accept no liability for damages, injury, or death caused by the following of this procedure.)
 
Stan James
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Shouldn't this work?: Snip your phone line at the spot where it leaves the house, extend it, and send it to your network point. Crimp an RJ-11 male connector to the end and you're ready to go.



Sounds perfect to me. I'd love to hear it from a telephony expert! I think one of the alpha-geeks at work may run home and try it after talking about it today. I'll let you know.

BTW: His experience with Vonage was real rough at first, much better lately. He thought the local operations were probably just having teething trouble at the beginning. He kept a land line for DSL only, uses Vonage for all phone, still costs less than with his old long distance package. Must talk a lot.
 
Marc Peabody
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My solution assumed a cable modem connection.

Today I thought of if someone were DSL what it would take because with DSL you still need your outer phone line to come in for your internet connection, so you'd have to do something like this:

outer phone line (spliced end) > modem > router (connecting rest of network) > ATA box > inner phone line (other spliced end)

This is done by snipping the line at the point where it leaves the house (as before) and inserting the 3 devices (modem, router, ATA) between the spliced ends. You'd also have to crimp male RJ-11 connectors on the spliced ends to plug them in.

If you don't want to move your modem or router you'd have to send 2 telephone lines to the networking point - the outer line to the modem and the inner line to the ATA.

Let us know how your buddies' experiments turn out, Stan.
 
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